Hello

I like music.

Projects

This is my Soundtrack for a movie that doesn't exist.

     This was one of the few "assignments" we had.  I think I got the build up that a movie trailer often has.

This is 

Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1

From the very beginning of acting and movies, people realized that music helped to give a mood to the piece.  For movies, we started to have live musicians play the music, but what you saw was an inefficient way of spending money.  However, interesting things came out of the period without real soundtracks, and that was the standardization of certain pieces to be used for certain times in movies.

Chapter 2

The Jazz Singer was the feature film to have voices that appeared to come from the actors mouth on screen.  This was a ground breaking technique and the audience loved it.  Interestingly enough, this pushed out the concept of having a composer compose music and preform it at the theatre.  This idea would return however when we see composers such as John Williams.  The talkies did come to change everything

Chapter 3

This chapter discussed how during the Golden Age of Cinema, Americans went to movies once a week and often for double features.  The film industry exploded.  It also discusses how a Hollywood studio worked.  In terms of musicians, music studios were always ready with entire orchestras to produce music for the movies.  IT discussed how stupid

Chapter 4

This chapter discussed the Golden Age of Hollywood more throughly and how some of the most famous movies of all time came out of this era right after WWII.  And therefore, some of the most famous MUSIC for movies ever.  IT was also famous on its own because people had never heard the music that was coming out of movies before. There are also famous and unheard of developments to accompany movies such as the 12 tone score for "The Man with a Cloak"

Chapter 5

By 1950 music was a huge part of movies.  With the invention of television and the loss in court over an anti-trust case, Hollywoods saw huge losses in staff, influence and profit.  Eventually as Hollywood producers tried to air movies on television they invented the sitcom.  Many films now had legitimate musical scored, with composers creating famous soundtracks for movies such as Citizen Kane, The Pink Panther and The Red Pony.   The movie industry had changed though, and the success of a movie relied on its quality rather than it going to a Hollywood owned theatre.

Chapter 6

The use of the rock music as well as electronic music become popular ideas in TV shows especially.  With Star Wars and Jaws we see a return of classical music to the scene, which had been diminishing.  12 tone music also gained popularity again, lending itself to the quick style of TV.  Chariots of Fire was the first all electronic film score, opening up a whole new door for composers.  Rock was sometimes difficult to deal with because of the lack of organization often involved with Rock music.

Chapter 7

This chapter discussed how a film is produced and the different rolls people play.  The producer schedules and budgets for the film, the director organizes everyone and tries to portray his view to the actors and rest of the crew to get the overall message just right.  The writes actually create the dialoge and write was is going to happen in the movie.  There is a film editor who puts all the filmed pieces together and takes out what they don't want.  Preproduction, production and postproduction with the music having to be the last part because a composer must know what he is working with.

Chapter 13

This chapter discussed the actual production of music.  All musicians need to remember three things, having a good foundation of music theory, have a goal for their piece and know their strengths and weaknesses.  Without knowing how to create music then you can't do anything, so it is important to at least have a base foundation of musical knowledge.  You need to know where you are going with a piece because if you don't have a goal then their really isn't a point for the piece and the final project (if there even is one) will reflect  lack of quality.  And lastly if you don't know what your good at or if you over extend yourself into a style that you can't handle then your final piece will not come out well.

Chapter 14

A composer needs to decide on a concept for the film's music but he also needs to think about other parts of the movie like dialogue.  Music can be used in a variety of different ways to alert the audience of a change in mood, introduction of a new character and other things.  The composer needs to consider how they will use music for the movie and what roll it will take.  Often we discuss the option of having the music be a seperate character in the movie as opposed to just something to add on to mood.  Composers need to smart in their choices of music placement, I think a good (but corny) example is when a villain reveals their plan and the music goes DUH DUH DUN!  Main title music is also very important because it plays during the opening credits and gives the first impressions of the film.  There is no picture but the viewer knows what to expect due to the mood of the music.  Composers also need to consider the option of putting their project together electronically or doing it by writing out notes.

Silent Film Project

Black Mail - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyTcdNrXSCE

Great, classic silent Hitchcock film.  I am taking advantage of the accidental murder scene around 32 minutes